The Curse of the Invincible Gentleman
by KenderickBlazey
Summary: "I thought I wanted to know why, or how that Italian kid got murdered. Turns out that I was deadly wrong." Alfred F Jones, aged fourteen, has made the mistake of his life. He has tried to investigate the sudden and mysterious murder of seemingly innocent Feliciano Vargas. But was Vargas all he seemed? Or has Alfred stumbled upon a British secret that was never to be uncovered? AU.
1. Chapter 1

**(Thames Valley Police notice: The following account was found in Burnham Beeches forest, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom. It is to be noted that it has all been written onto exercise book paper. The following account is strictly confidential. Viewer discression is advised.)**

I can pretty much say that I've completely and royally screwed everything up.

And for once, being 'the hero' won't solve anything. At all.

I suppose the only thing I can say is... I'm sorry, alright? I didn't mean for any of this to happen.

I'm sorry I couldn't save you, Feliciano. I didn't know you that well, or for that long, but... I think your murder was my fault. I'm sorry I'm not gonna see you grow up as my bro, Mattie. My family, I'm sorry I ditched you guys, and my friends. And...

Ah, Goddamit.

There's too many people to apologise to. So, instead of wasting paper, I'm...

I'm gonna write my story. I know that whoever is gonna find this probably won't believe me, but... I promise here right now that every word which I'm gonna put in here is true. One hundred percent fact, or the best to that extent of what the hell I can remember. I apologise for whatever inaccuracies, it's been a rough few weeks.

All you've gotta know is... You know mirrors? Those things that you can see your reflections in, right?

There's something evil going on with them. Something outta this world.

Promise me, whoever is reading this, that if you find this, you get it out to the world. It's too late for me, but you've probably got time. Yeah, he won't be after you, yet. Just don't do what I did, and pass this story on. To my family, if you can contact 'em, to the press, or... I don't know. You can even pass this onto your neighbor's dog, as long as you pass it on.

Thanks, man.

Who am I, you may ask?

The name is Alfred F Jones. I'm fourteen, and this is the story of how I met the 'Invincible Gentleman'.


	2. Chapter 2

Let me tell you a bit about myself. I guess the only way parts of this whole mess will make sense is if I explain, right?

Like I said, my name is Alfred. I was born and raised in the states, and moved here with my bro, Mattie, to live with my gramps and grandma because my parents are kinda going through a rough divorce. My mom's a bit of a drama queen, and my old man's aggressive as heck. You can figure out the rest.

An American kid, huh? Yeah, dish out the insults already. I've heard 'em all. But, you ain't gonna make me not proud of my heritage, dude. That's a part of me.

I think my favourite insult has to be the one that a teacher yelled at me. Something along the lines of 'Stupid burger eating git'. I'm not sure why, but I found it kind of funny. But whatever! I'm getting distracted. When I moved here at the beginning of the 'new school year' (what the hell, guys? School doesn't start in September!), I got transferred into this school called... Burn-ham? Like, burning meat. Yeah, weird British people with their weird names, tell me about it. I got put into this special kind of school for smart kids. It's like a high school, but the system's all weird.

Anyway, I move here, start going to classes, make some buddies... It's all good. Mattie seemed happy, although he's been put in a different class than me (which kinda sucks) and aside from a massive pile of homework every night, I was doing pretty well. I made friends with these two kids in my 'form' called Luddy (he's this mean-lookin' German kid with the work ethic of a bulldozer. It's weird, but despite him being fourteen, you can tell that he's _all _muscle. I think he does a lotta sport or works out or something) and Kiku (we kicked off pretty well. He's Japanese, and a pretty nice guy. Kinda quiet, like Mattie, and uber polite!).

They both took me in when I first came here, and they've stayed my main friends since the beginning. They're both really cool people! The first few weeks were kinda daunting, but I got through em pretty well. My teachers got to know me pretty quick, too.

Everything changed when I first met Feliciano Vargas.


	3. Chapter 3

When I say that I 'met' Feliciano, I suppose I should've said 'saw' instead.

He was definitely not your ordinary kid. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

It was a couple weeks into my first term at the school. Ludwig and I were both in the same P.E. (Physical Education, a fancy way of saying 'sports') class, and were lining up outside for registration.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, this little brunet kid just sprints into sight, gives the teacher a note and gets the hell out of here, like something or somebody was chasing him. The teacher and the other kids were totally unfazed.

I got an eyeful of him as he got by us. He was a short 'feller. Messy hair, like he hadn't washed it in weeks. Messy uniform, too. Seemed to be carrying, like... A book or something. He reminded me of a homeless person, and I had difficulty believing nobody had said anything at all.

I turned to Ludwig, and asked him, "Who the hell was that?"

He turned to look at me. His usually calm or determined face replaced by this brokenhearted expression. "What do you mean?"

"That kid who just gave the teacher the note? Who else could I be talking about?"

I swear to God, his eyes widened, and he gulped, scared. "Feliciano Vargas."

"Vargas?" The name sounded familiar. The kid had a brother in the year above ours. I'll write about him when he comes in. "What? Why...? What was up with him?"

"He.. Can't do P.E."

"What?" I was getting pretty frustrated by now. "Why?"

He gulped. Again. "I'll tell you at break."

"But, Lud-"

His words were final. "At break."


	4. Chapter 4

Ludwig and I met outside the canteen, and sat down to eat our lunches. Because their break is closer to lunchtime (it's held around twelve o'clock), everyone eats then. I had almost forgotten about Feliciano at this point, however, the second Kiku appeared, Ludwig stood up and whispered something to him.

Kiku's eyes widened, and he glanced over at me. He then turned to Ludwig. "Should we tell him? I mean, we don't know much ourselves. What if we're wrong and we will be impolitely spreading rumours about-"

"He wants to know." I heard Ludwig say, strained. "It's not like we can do anything about it, and it really isn't that big of a deal."

"A-alright..."

At this point, it was safe to say my curiosity levels were pretty peaked. I gave them both confused looks. "What? What are you dudes talking about?"

"You said you wanted to know about Feli." Ludwig's got these piercing blue eyes, right? The kind that make you want to agree, or you know there'll be hell. So, I simply nodded my head.

"I guess I'm curious. What's up with you guys, though? You're all acting really weird."

"I apologise, Alfred-San." Kiku seemed strangely frantic. "It's just that... The whole thing is quite touchy."

"We both knew Feli before he... Changed." Ludwig explained, his expression of upset didn't quite, y'know... Suit him. "Last year, up until the summer term, Feli, Kiku and I were quite good friends. Hung around together, always went in the same groups. We had all been close friends since secondary school began. He was a... Good person. A little scatterbrained and disorganised, but... A fun person to be around. Always smiling and making those around him happy."

"He was a good artist, too." Kiku nodded.

"A very good artist. Probably one of the more talented in the year, although he spent majority of the art lessons flirting with the girls. But then... A term before the school ended for the academic year... He changed overnight. He got very... Weary of something, acting like something was after him. He didn't talk to anyone anymore, not even us, his closest friends."

"He moved classes and stopped participating in P.E." Kiku said quickly, looking me with a scared expression. "We're not sure what happened, but..."

"But?"

"He kept on saying something about the mirrors scaring him."


	5. Chapter 5

I first found him, sitting on a pile of scrap materials in this abandoned courtyard of our school. Brushing off first impressions aside, I glanced over him to examine the boy called Feliciano further. He was sat, cross legged and sketching some picture in this little book. It was kinda weird, just looking at him. He was humming some tune I didn't know, absorbed in his own, little world.

He obviously didn't see me coming, as when I said 'hi', he proceeded to jump about ten feet into the air, screaming at the top of his lungs.

"Whoah, chillax, dude! I'm not here to hurt you!"

He had these big, puppy-like brown eyes that looked straight into mine. Something was kinda weird about them, though. As if they had seen something traumatic, or evil. Or the fires of hell.

I tried to smile. "Hey, there! You're Feli, right?"

"...Si. I mean, uh, yes.." His voice was musical, with an obvious accent that sounded like 'Mario'. I thought it was pretty damn cool. "I-I'm sorry, no one has actually called me that in a while... No one has actually talked to me in a while, either..."

I couldn't have imagined why. I could smell the perspiration off of him a few feet away. How long had it been since the boy had taken a bath?! Still, I grinned. "Well, I'm pretty new here! The name's Alfred. Alfred F Jones!"

"You're American." He suddenly blinked, curious. He reminded me of a mouse. "Your accent, I mean. It sounds like it's..."

"I'm from the states." I smiled. I think it was at that point that despite being a nervous wreck, he was pretty harmless. "Pleased to meet ya! I'm here to make new friends, and I guess I wanna make new ones!" I stepped forwards to offer my hand to shake, but he suddenly starts screaming.

"T-Take off your glasses! P-Please!" I'm practically freaking out at this point because he's having a panic attack, and I don't know what to do. I stepped forwards to try and calm him down, but he keeps screaming and screaming, so out of desperation, I follow his orders and quickly put the glasses away, but he still keeps screaming!

Until his throat goes raw, and he then just starts to hyperventilate. I realise he might need help, and that I had to go and get matron (this lady who's like... The school nurse with a weird name. I think it is another weird, British thing. How many of them are there, anyway?). What if he was an asthmatic, and me doing nothing could kill him?

"I'll be right back! Don't move!"

I sprinted to reception as fast as I could and got the matron, banging on her door and yelling that 'Feliciano Vargas was having a breakdown and dying or something' and then she followed me to where I had first met Feli, but...

He wasn't there.

I was stuck there, gobsmacked until I saw his notebook on the floor. It had been dumped, the most recent pages spread out on the floor. I picked them up, but the matron snatched it outta my hands and read it, before looking at me, her face pale.

Without another word, she gave me the book, and I glanced over it.

What was written inside shocked me completely. It left me stunned and scared, and I nearly dropped the book as I was reading it.  
**  
'Alfred F Jones. American friend.**

Sorry.

HE IS HERE.

HELP ME.

MY EYES.'

Who was 'he'? Why was my name there? Why was he apologising for?

And the eyes...

I glanced down, and saw that the metal pile he had been sitting on was all messed up. Where had he gone? Why had he gone?

The matron was looking at me with confusion, as was I at her, when suddenly, we heard a bloodcurdling scream. It emanated where the school's swimming pool was, and suddenly, the screaming was overshadowed by a loud splash.

Not saying anything else, we both ran to the swimming pool, which had been completely deserted.

Except for one thing.

Feliciano's body.  
When the police pulled him out, we found out that apparently, something had strangled the life out of him, and made him choke on water. His body had clawmarks in it, and a good chunk of the skin on his shoulder, his thigh and his arm was missing. Bitten off. With human toothmarks, as they told me later on when they were interviewing me.

A severe wound, but nothing that would kill him.

What freaked me out was that the missing flesh was never found. Almost as if someone had taken it, or...

Or eaten it.

Scratch that. The scariest thing was that Feliciano's right eye... Had been gouged out completely.


	6. Chapter 6

The next few days were a blur of policemen and interviews. I have to admit, I was kinda scared of the uniformed guys, they all seemed so serious and kind of frightening.

My last interview was with another guy who wasn't actually one of the policemen. I thought he was in like, his mid-twenties, but it turned out that this guy was Feliciano's gramps, who had been looking after both Feliciano and his brother. No idea what happened to his parents.

His name, from what I got from him (he talked with that same, musical accent, but much quicker and livelier. When he was crying, understanding the dude was difficult as hell), was something like 'Roma'. He was in tears. A lot of tears.

I didn't get to see how Ludwig and Kiku took the news. I was gone out of lessons for police interviews for the majority of that next week.

At the end of the last interview, I was sure of one thing. They all seemed to think I was Feliciano's one friend. Poor man was totally by himself, no friends or whatever. Nobody knew how exactly he had died. There were no cameras or anything to record it, and nobody had broken into school grounds. Suicide was considered, but I had none of it.

I had seen the flesh that had been eaten away from Feli's skin. And his eye. That had gone without a trace, too.

On Friday, the last day of the last interview, I was walking out, when suddenly I heard a shout from behind. It was Roma.

"Hey! Wait! Alfred, was it? I'm sorry we met each other in circumstances like this. I would've liked to meet Feliciano's friends while... He was still alive."

I was about to correct him and say that we hadn't been friends for more than ten seconds, when I caught the sight of a tear rolling down from his eye. Jesus, this man was depressed. Who could blame him, though? His grandson had died before him.

I guess I just couldn't find it in myself to say no or anything. Not when he was like this.

"Hey... Would you like to come around? We're going to be selling some of his things, and perhaps there's... There's something of his that you'd like to have before we sell it off? I'm making dinner as well, and you... You could hang out with my other grandson, as well!"

I was also going to refuse this, stranger-danger and all.

But then, something clicked. Maybe I could find some clues on how he died from his room. What if he had been hiding from something? Someone? A bunch of people? Maybe I could get to the bottom of what had happened!  
I was, at the time, pretty big on comic book heroes. This was my chance to shine!

I thought I wanted to know why, or how that Italian kid got murdered. Turns out that I was wrong.

Deadly wrong.

But I'm skipping too far.

I smiled at Roma, and told him that dinner would be great.


	7. Chapter 7

We waited for Feli's older bro to come meet us at the landrover that Roma drove. Usually, this dude, Lovino, is pretty known for his attitude. I've seen him swearing and yelling at the teachers and stuff, and apparently he gets detention a lot, but today he was really, really...

Distraught. Void . Empty.

I mean, no shit Sherlock. His brother just died a few days ago, but there seemed to be something really off with the guy. He didn't even say anything to me. He saw me, registered me and then gave me a bitter look before hopping into the back seat.

"Don't mind him." Roma shook his head, disappointed. Almost as if he was used to dismissing this kid off. "He's always grumpy. Come on, guests get to sit in the front!"

So, we drove off to his house. His place wasn't too far away, and was similar to your average flat around the area. Square windows, red bricks, whatever. Nothing special. Nothing daunting. I dunno, I guess I was kinda expecting more from it. No horror-movie material or anything. Just... More.

Still, we went in, I took my shoes off and Roma gives me this big 'ole sappy smile. As if I reminded him of something, or someone.

Probably Feli. It's kinda sad.

"Hey, just throw your bag somewhere. We're not very organised. I'm going to prepare dinner, so why don't you go and look around... Feliciano's room? It's marked, so it'll be kind of obvious which one you're looking for. Lovino just sits down and watches television before planting his ass on the computer, so if you get bored just go talk to him."

I gave him a nod and went up the stairs.

He was right and all. Feliciano's room was marked with a big, pretty handpainted sign that said 'Feliciano's domain'. It was pretty damn cute as well as depressing as heck. Poor kid. I opened the door and stepped in, and suddenly, I got all cold.

I wasn't sure why, but it felt like someone was watching me. Like, whatever. I quickly got to business to try and find as many clues as I possibly could, just to see if I could find anything that was of use. Nope. Zilch. Nada.

Just sketches. A shit tonne of sketches and sketchbooks. And a hell of a load of incomplete homework sheets. I looked over his excercise books, and the pages hardly had any work on them. Just doodles and shit. Ludwig and Kiku weren't kidding, though. He was really, really good at art.

I noticed that a few that were dated a year ago seemed to mostly consist of a few different topics. Either these really cutsey animals, quick cartoony things of his friends or something that was actually really, really detailed and really well done.

I'm not really an art expert myself, but I began to notice that after a while, the doodles of cute things began to morph into more realistic ones. Nothing with Malice, though. Just really realistic animals.

I was about to give up with one of the sketchbooks when I turned a page and stopped. It was creepy. A picture of a man. Not too old, or young. You couldn't tell his age, really. He was drawn in greyscale, except for his eyes, which had been coloured pretty damn well in. They looked straight at you, and were this really emerald green colour.

I thought it was a photograph at first, then I noticed the dude had these MAHOOOOSIVE eyebrows, so I quickly put the book down and laughed at myself for thinking that shit was real.

I then saw that Feli had a laptop. A 'Dell' to be exact. Quite compact, small. However, it was on hibernate. Out of habit, I wanted to check my tumblr. However, when I put my finger on the touchpad, I noticed it had gained dust on it. As had the computer.

This was confusing. I waggled my finger on the pad and the laptop screen sprang to life. I was met with his whole inbox. He had like a bazillion unopened messages, quite a few of them being concerned ones from his close friends.

A heartfelt, but stern and perfectly written one from Ludwig.

A concern from Kiku.

A few others from what I recognised to be classmates and people in the year.

I scroll down and see what was the last opened message in curiosity, and find out that it was opened around june.

It had no sender. Literally. That box was blank. The message subject was pretty weird, but pretty compelling.

'Have you ever wanted limitless knowledge? Click the attachment and find out!'

Out of my curiosity, I clicked on the letter.

I swear to God, the temperature of the room dropped by ten degrees at that point.


	8. Chapter 8

**[June 23rd 2011]**

Email sent to: PastaArtistLuvr09 .uk  
Sender: -

Email has been checked for viruses.

Hello, dear reader! I bet you've been troubled by the big, or small questions in life for a while, haven't you? Questions on how life began, or if God is real? What about whether he or she loves you?

Well, we have the very best solution for you! Ahah! Don't close the document, yet! You're not paying for any services, except for the one for the ceremony, which you can do in the comfort of your own home!

The invincible gentleman could be the very answer for you!

To find out the answer to any question you've got, simply do the following!

1. Wait until midnight. This is pretty important! It's a pretty magic time.

**2. Make sure you go to a bathroom with a MIRROR, all by yourself. Bring several leaves of Earl Grey Tea, a cup, some milk and sugar, a few matchsticks or a lighter (for you newfangled children), a small kettle or teapot and some kinderling.**

**3. At midnight, enter the bathroom with the materials. Set fire to the kinderling and boil the tea leaves to make the tea. **

**4. The room should fill up with smoke. This is completely natural and a part of the ritual. Make sure that you keep the tea at a piping hot temperature.**

**5. The Invincible Gentleman will step out of the mirror. Mix the milk and sugar into the tea and give it to him.**

**6. You now have time until he finishes the tea to ask him any single question you could ever think of asking. He will be truthful and give you straightforward answers!**

BEWARE, HOWEVER. The invincible gentleman has no food to eat in his world, and after finishing his tea, will attempt to devour your flesh. To prevent this from happening, you must grab and pull out one of his eyes. This may be difficult, but it will be the only thing capable of hurting him. After this, he should be disorientated and in pain, and you can easily stuff him back into his mirror world.

SECOND WARNING: After commencing the ritual, you may never see or look into another mirror ever again. He can now track you, and if you are visible in a mirror, he can see you and will not hesitate to come out and get revenge. This process is irreversible.  
Good luck to all you philosophers, and may your questions be answered!

-Fleance, FMB.


End file.
